Best Ruben O Poems

.
I don't want warm fingertips touching my name.
I won't feel those left-to-rust letters,
not even read them—Don't come
with lashes under waterproof mascara
for same-day return flight
—those wings were mine.
No need of somber daisies,
I won't pick petals anymore.
Naked of all care to unclose my eyes,
I'll be quieter, simpler, easier
to understand. Don't knock on the stone,
I won't be around
as whisper, as tickling, as shadow,
nor sudden silence, no crying wolf.
You won't find me. I'll be gone.
My every sunset consumed in tundra,
devoured by questions that tore skin and
dreams. Forget it—nevermore.
My best smile, my blessed hands, my better world,
nothing will be left of them. Don't come,
it'll be late. You should have come earlier,
you shouldn't have gone.
This stolen flower pressed between our lives
never wilted; yet, you didn't know.
Your constant walls, my depth of doubts, our equal loss,
blow them off into the night.
But don't come,
once I'm gone—I swear,
not even as a tiny blade of grass—
never, I will never return.
10/8/2010
.

.
To Chan "Archaic" Hurst
I see you —in a way— caught
held captive from escaping
from inside
a broken mirror
beyond curse or superstition,
staring at yourself: fractured fragmented
with your need to unfold art
arising through every fissure
no further tricked by soothing pills.
I see you —in a way— laying awake
counting cracks when pain pierced the air or
kicking in amniotic fluid:
a mirror breaker
who throws crystal's shards in all directions
Torch confined to lead light in
technicolor, through pentagrams
within flamboyant kaleidoscopes or
stained glass windows. Unsolved
puzzle on the verge of your own Walden
where nothing will be enough
where you will never belong.
I see you —in a way— a dreamer
who fosters fantasy with nesting habits
discovering Tolkien in Star Wars pajamas or
racing a Nimbus 2000 over Gotham city.
Child-brother sharing Hakuna Matatas.
Yet, there you stand:
Who's the best rhymer in the land?
cause it's all just Greek to us
to mock the geeks, perhaps
we rolled our eyes
Today, a guitar grieves and revives
euphoric notes. We know
there is no stage five life
and although its knots seem to be untied
I see you —in a way— still alive

Thoughts of death, one after another,
mourning a loss. They fall like hailstones
cracking tiles, waking the night
—its perceived substance—
things not seen but feared. I could care less.
It's the longest night of my years
caught in the toils of doubts, of despair
of the noise of falling ice that reverberates inside
my faith in sudden slices. Impotent to
kiss resignation's toes
advocated by those who want my obedience
and tithes at all costs. Impotent to
listen to duty of silken stole
that pulls creaking faith into its coils. Impotent to
accept sacred writings chosen by lot. Impotent of
praying more and thinking less. Impotent
to breathe, to see
to walk through wind-blown salt and s i l t
measuring a time dark and lost. A ruptured soul
over versions of interpretations of
oral traditions already translated into lies: Greeks, Romans,
monarchs, despots, rulers, reformists, stoics...
Thoughts of death like tears of ice
Where will be the lice that sucks my sins and tics
that coughs and gags and vomits my unfulfilled temptations into a cist?
Thoughts of death tickling upon my bare soles.
It's tonight, at its farthest point from my Sun—still so close.
I need to believe it—God—you need to believe it:
You'll die as soon as my faith is lost
.

.
Dedicated to Carrie Richards
I am ...
the wandering breeze in the wheat field
the pawn advancing to the eighth rank
the ocher leaves under the window
the One Hundred Years of Solitude
the One Thousand and One Nights
the disappointment of the elderly
the pile of dirty dishes in the sink
the water trickling into the sewer
the hand that calls and defends
the vast ocean that drowns me
the widower feeding the doves
the five drops of Chanel No. 5
the saddest verses of Neruda
the insect hidden in a cocoon
the impotence of forgiveness
the Tango and the Tarantella
the windmills of Don Quixote
the colors and the shadows
the sadness of the hunger
the barking dog that bites
the prelude and the fugue
the glass of wine to share
the illusion of the outcast
the puddles on the street
the new kid in the school
the orphan in the asylum
the lies of the politicians
the rain on a sunny day
the message in a bottle
the petal and the thorn
the laughter of children
the blindness of Borges
the feather in the wind
the moss on the stone
the beard of Whitman
the Nuremberg Trials
the door always open
the underpaid worker
the mistletoe waiting
the hair in your food
the tangerine wedge
the gasp to nowhere
the last surrenderer
the beggar's refuge
the pointing finger
the foam of anger
the broken mirror
the clocks of Dali
the curving road
the Trail of Tears
the garlic breath
the bitter vomit
the Nazca lines
the lost island
the false note
the joy of sin
I am death
underwear
buccaneer
sunflower
solstice
silence
sperm
guitar
lover
gore
war
you
we
the poet.
.

.
Let's retro walk decades to the sun
dried affiches
— its thick finger at us—
calling up: we want you
when wars began in guttural tongues and
used to wait. It seems
we've been trusting for so long in posters
since the antennae, now pixels.
We-want-yous in circular ritual
a scheme of half-naked excuses
maximizing fear:
strings pulled to upset puppets
who run to slap bumper stickers
who, hand over heart, shake pom-poms or flags;
innocents of all.
We seal-clap to swallow
blurred chimeras, opportune abysses
abstract words circling up above our minds
in continence. We lie
down on concentric lies,
stretch our legs, pretend freedom, and live the same
day twice.
Inside us, trapped in our flesh,
implanted wars distend, throb, march on
for the salt, for the sand, for the sake
of our Asian fetish. How many sequels?
Those masks we wore weren't ours.
I think I saw a pregnant nun—in her habit
of exhorting us
as voters, tax-payers, heroes ... no matter
what, our side has been picked for us.
Above ground, we belong below. Buried
beneath our uncritical support.
Manufactured wars
from desks—behind them—cyclically reinvented.
Unocal, Enron, Halliburton wars.
I won't feel less terrorized.
Who would? Would you?
Defined by corners
rooms adjoin rooms of chronic echoes
broadcast live. Sons return as heroes
in complimentary caskets—as crude
as it may sound—parts of them never do.
Or split in halves, lost somewhere in-between
longing to be rescued—somehow.
Walk with me
even if we tangle with strings and stripes.
Let's walk staring straight—into someday.
.

.
Shine, Mediterranean Selene
unique goddess of this dark life
glow with pride and forget the strife
all my nights are lonely and serene.
I'm yours, only yours, pure and clean
and although your distrust is rife
soon, so soon... you'll become my wife
believe these words of sacred mien.
Do not let envy plant those seeds
of fear, of jealousy and spite
from the demons come those breeds
whose gossip and lies seek our fight
They're who expect your heart concedes
to steal what lives just for your light.
.

.
Shine, midnight pearls!
The smoke curls up in whirls of doom.
On the wet sand
my own hand draws unplanned pierced hearts.
Deep blue-black sky
I play by rules and sigh despair
to lay aside
starry-eyed dreams that hide a sin.
Shine, distant stars!
through guitars notes, through scars of time.
For her first kiss
an abyss drains all bliss from me
and far away
shadows play down their spray of doubts.
Opaque pearls, shine!
On this fine night, define my north.
.
4/23/2012

... through nights of ether.
Liquid paraffin drowns shadows
of potpourri
and anniversaries
that measure the distance of sight and sound
tiptoeing down thousand-threads
sheets in ascetic reds
or tense blue — Déjà vu of absent drive
As if our apathy could long survive
its own silence.
I wonder if there will be time
to pull up anchor and sun
or if we'll just float adrift
until sinking — scarcely
ever after.
Thanks Deborah for "scarcely"
07/27/2015